Posts Tagged ‘Colombia’

This year is a decisive year for the peacetalks between Colombia’s government and the marxist FARC guerrillas. With a little bit of luck a peace treaty will be signed after 3 years of slow and difficult negotiations in Cuba’s capital Havana.

But the most difficult part is yet to come: will Colombians, who are so used to war and of whom many never have known peace, be able to reconcile and forgive eachother?

Guerrilla M19’s commander Carlos Pizarro demobilized and was killed a few years after

Colombia will negotiate peace with its biggest guerrilla group FARC, and perhaps with the smaller ELN as well. It’s the most important news in years and it’s quite a big change compared to ex-president Álvaro Uribe’s policy of continuous attacking the guerrilla and trying to beat it the armed way. Many Colombians are glad because what they most want is peace, but others think it’s very inconvenient to negotiate with armed groups that are considered terrorists. The governments most fierce opponent is in fact ex-president Uribe. (more…)

Hottest news in Colombia at the moment: national soccer trainer hits woman and loses his job. A female senator defends him, because the woman must have provoked him. Oh my, this senator is doing three steps back where the country is doing tiny steps forward, now and then. Physical abuses and murderings of women happen every day here. So please let this senator shut up at once! But back to the hitting itself. AND AN UPDATE (more…)

She said she saw herself enter Bogotá in victory, just like Fidel Castro and his rebels took Havana in triumph in 1959. It kept bothering me, Tanja Nijmeijer, Dutch member of Colombia’s FARC, said this to Jorge Enrique Botero, Colombian journalist. It sounds absurd and arrogant, especially if you contrast it with the information of Colombia’s army. The FARC are said to be running constantly for the army, their ideology is dead and they eat the roots of the trees to feed their hungry stomach. As always the truth must be somewhere in between. (more…)

I should have translated my Tanja-post days ago but I was delayed by a bad flu and now I am being obstructed by an example of crazy bureaucracy of which Colombians have shown themselves experts. I’ll try to stay quiet and explain. Take a breath… (more…)